1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"ISO-8859-1"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/'
>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from February
2025</title>
5 <description>Entries from February
2025</description>
6 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>Brushing up on old packages in Xiph and Debian
</title>
11 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Brushing_up_on_old_packages_in_Xiph_and_Debian.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Brushing_up_on_old_packages_in_Xiph_and_Debian.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri,
28 Feb
2025 16:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Since my motivation boost in the beginning of the month caused me
15 to wrap up a new release of
16 <tt
><a href=
"https://xiph.org/oggz/
">liboggz
</a
></tt
>, I have used the
17 same boost to wrap up new editions of
18 <tt
><a href=
"https://xiph.org/fishsound/
">libfishsound
</a
></tt
>,
19 <tt
><a href=
"https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggplay/
">liboggplay
</a
></tt
>
21 <tt
><a href=
"https://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/OggKate
">libkate
</a
></tt
>
22 too. These have been tagged in upstream git, but not yet published on
23 the Xiph download location. I am waiting for someone with access to
24 have time to move the tarballs there, I hope it will happen in a few
25 days. The same is the case for a minor update of liboggz too.
</p
>
27 <p
>As I was looking at Xiph packages lacking updates, it occurred to
28 me that there are packages in Debian that have not received a new
29 upload in a long time. Looking for a way to identify them, I came
30 across the
<tt
>ltnu
</tt
> script from the
31 <tt
><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/devscripts
">devscripts
</a
></tt
>
32 package. It can sort by last update, packages maintained by a single
33 user/group, and is useful to figure out which packages a single
34 maintainer should have a look at. But I wanted a archive wide
35 summary. I lifted the
<a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/
">UDD
</a
> SQL
36 query used by ltnu from the script and adjusted it slightly to end up
37 with the following command:
</p
>
41 env PGPASSWORD=udd-mirror psql --host=udd-mirror.debian.net --user=udd-mirror udd --command=
"
46 where distribution=
'unstable
' and
47 source in (select source
49 where release=
'sid
')
51 order by max(date) asc
55 <p
>This will sort all source packages in Debian by upload date, and
56 list the
50 oldest ones. The end result is a list of packages I
57 suspect could use some attention:
</p
>
60 source | ver | uploaded
61 -----------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------
62 xserver-xorg-video-ivtvdev |
1.1.2-
1 |
2011-
02-
09 22:
26:
27+
00
63 dynamite |
0.1.1-
2 |
2011-
04-
30 16:
47:
20+
00
64 xkbind |
2010.05.20-
1 |
2011-
05-
02 22:
48:
05+
00
65 libspctag |
0.2-
1 |
2011-
09-
22 18:
47:
07+
00
66 gromit |
20041213-
9 |
2011-
11-
13 21:
02:
56+
00
67 s3switch |
0.1-
1 |
2011-
11-
22 15:
47:
40+
00
68 cd5 |
0.1-
3 |
2011-
12-
07 21:
19:
05+
00
69 xserver-xorg-video-glide |
1.2.0-
1 |
2011-
12-
30 16:
50:
48+
00
70 blahtexml |
0.9-
1.1 |
2012-
04-
25 11:
32:
11+
00
71 aggregate |
1.6-
7 |
2012-
05-
01 00:
47:
11+
00
72 rtfilter |
1.1-
4 |
2012-
05-
11 12:
50:
00+
00
73 sic |
1.1-
5 |
2012-
05-
11 19:
10:
31+
00
74 kbdd |
0.6-
4 |
2012-
05-
12 07:
33:
32+
00
75 logtop |
0.4.3-
1 |
2012-
06-
05 23:
04:
20+
00
76 gbemol |
0.3.2-
2 |
2012-
06-
26 17:
03:
11+
00
77 pidgin-mra |
20100304-
1 |
2012-
06-
29 23:
07:
41+
00
78 mumudvb |
1.7.1-
1 |
2012-
06-
30 09:
12:
14+
00
79 libdr-sundown-perl |
0.02-
1 |
2012-
08-
18 10:
00:
07+
00
80 ztex-bmp |
20120314-
2 |
2012-
08-
18 19:
47:
55+
00
81 display-dhammapada |
1.0-
0.1 |
2012-
12-
19 12:
02:
32+
00
82 eot-utils |
1.1-
1 |
2013-
02-
19 17:
02:
28+
00
83 multiwatch |
1.0.0-rc1+really1.0
.0-
1 |
2013-
02-
19 17:
02:
35+
00
84 pidgin-latex |
1.5.0-
1 |
2013-
04-
04 15:
03:
43+
00
85 libkeepalive |
0.2-
1 |
2013-
04-
08 22:
00:
07+
00
86 dfu-programmer |
0.6.1-
1 |
2013-
04-
23 13:
32:
32+
00
87 libb64 |
1.2-
3 |
2013-
05-
05 21:
04:
51+
00
88 i810switch |
0.6.5-
7.1 |
2013-
05-
10 13:
03:
18+
00
89 premake4 |
4.3+repack1-
2 |
2013-
05-
31 12:
48:
51+
00
90 unagi |
0.3.4-
1 |
2013-
06-
05 11:
19:
32+
00
91 mod-vhost-ldap |
2.4.0-
1 |
2013-
07-
12 07:
19:
00+
00
92 libapache2-mod-ldap-userdir |
1.1.19-
2.1 |
2013-
07-
12 21:
22:
48+
00
93 w9wm |
0.4.2-
8 |
2013-
07-
18 11:
49:
10+
00
94 vish |
0.0.20130812-
1 |
2013-
08-
12 21:
10:
37+
00
95 xfishtank |
2.5-
1 |
2013-
08-
20 17:
34:
06+
00
96 wap-wml-tools |
0.0.4-
7 |
2013-
08-
21 16:
19:
10+
00
97 ttysnoop |
0.12d-
6 |
2013-
08-
24 17:
33:
09+
00
98 libkaz |
1.21-
2 |
2013-
09-
02 16:
00:
10+
00
99 rarpd |
0.981107-
9 |
2013-
09-
02 19:
48:
24+
00
100 libimager-qrcode-perl |
0.033-
1.2 |
2013-
09-
04 21:
06:
31+
00
101 dov4l |
0.9+repack-
1 |
2013-
09-
22 19:
33:
25+
00
102 textdraw |
0.2+ds-
0+nmu1 |
2013-
10-
07 21:
25:
03+
00
103 gzrt |
0.8-
1 |
2013-
10-
08 06:
33:
13+
00
104 away |
0.9.5+ds-
0+nmu2 |
2013-
10-
25 01:
18:
18+
00
105 jshon |
20131010-
1 |
2013-
11-
30 00:
00:
11+
00
106 libstar-parser-perl |
0.59-
4 |
2013-
12-
23 21:
50:
43+
00
107 gcal |
3.6.3-
3 |
2013-
12-
29 18:
33:
29+
00
108 fonts-larabie |
1:
20011216-
5 |
2014-
01-
02 21:
20:
49+
00
109 ccd2iso |
0.3-
4 |
2014-
01-
28 06:
33:
35+
00
110 kerneltop |
0.91-
1 |
2014-
02-
04 12:
03:
30+
00
111 vera++ |
1.2.1-
2 |
2014-
02-
04 21:
21:
37+
00
115 <p
>So there are
8 packages last uploaded to unstable in
2011,
12
116 packages in
2012 and
26 packages in
2013. I suspect their maintainers
117 need help and we should all offer our assistance. I already contacted
118 two of them and hope the rest of the Debian community will chip in to
119 help too. We should ensure any Debian specific patches are passed
120 upstream if they still exist, that the package is brought up to speed
121 with the latest Debian policy, as well as ensure the source can built
122 with the current compiler set in Debian.
</p
>
124 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
125 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
126 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
131 <title>Some of my
2024 free software activities
</title>
132 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_of_my_2024_free_software_activities.html
</link>
133 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_of_my_2024_free_software_activities.html
</guid>
134 <pubDate>Mon,
10 Feb
2025 09:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
135 <description><p
>It is a while since I posted a summary of the free software and
136 open culture activities and projects I have worked on. Here is a
137 quick summary of the major ones from last year.
</p
>
139 <p
>I guess the biggest project of the year has been migrating orphaned
140 packages in Debian without a version control system to have a git
141 repository on salsa.debian.org. When I started in April around
450
142 the orphaned packages needed git. I
've since migrated around
250 of
143 the packages to a salsa git repository, and around
40 packages were
144 left when I took a break. Not sure who did the around
160 conversions
145 I was not involved in, but I am very glad I got some help on the
146 project. I stopped partly because some of the remaining packages
147 needed more disk space to build than I have available on my
148 development machine, and partly because some had a strange build setup
149 I could not figure out. I had a time budget of
20 minutes per
150 package, if the package proved problematic and likely to take longer,
151 I moved to another package. Might continue later, if I manage to free
152 up some disk space.
</p
>
154 <p
>Another rather big project was the translation to Norwegian Bokmål
155 and publishing of the first book ever published by a Sámi woman, the
156 «
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/publisher/#infoerlifellerdoed2024
">Møter
157 vi liv eller død?
</a
>» book by Elsa Laula, with a PD0 and CC-BY
158 license. I released it during the summer, and to my surprise it has
159 already sold several copies. As I suck at marketing, I did not expect
160 to sell any.
</p
>
162 <p
>A smaller, but more long term project (for more than
10 years now),
163 and related to orphaned packages in Debian, is my project to ensure a
164 simple way to install hardware related packages in Debian when the
165 relevant hardware is present in a machine. It made a fairly big
166 advance forward last year, partly because I have been poking and
167 begging package maintainers and upstream developers to include
168 AppStream metadata XML in their packages. I
've also released a few
169 new versions of the isenkram system with some robustness improvements.
170 Today
127 packages in Debian provide such information, allowing
171 <tt
>isenkram-lookup
</tt
> to propose them. Will keep pushing until the
172 around
35 package names currently hard coded in the isenkram package
173 are down to zero, so only information provided by individual packages
174 are used for this feature.
</p
>
176 <p
>As part of the work on AppStream, I have sponsored several packages
177 into Debian where the maintainer wanted to fix the issue but lacked
178 direct upload rights. I
've also sponsored a few other packages, when
179 approached by the maintainer.
</p
>
181 <p
>I would also like to mention two hardware related packages in
182 particular where I have been involved, the megactl and mfi-util
183 packages. Both work with the hardware RAID systems in several Dell
184 PowerEdge servers, and the first one is already available in Debian
185 (and of course, proposed by isenkram when used on the appropriate Dell
186 server), the other is waiting for NEW processing since this autumn. I
187 manage several such Dell servers and would like the tools needed to
188 monitor and configure these RAID controllers to be available from
189 within Debian out of the box.
</p
>
191 <p
>Vaguely related to hardware support in Debian, I have also been
192 trying to find ways to help out the Debian ROCm team, to improve the
193 support in Debian for my artificial idiocy (AI) compute node. So far
194 only uploaded one package, helped test the initial packaging of
195 llama.cpp and tried to figure out how to get good speech recognition
196 like Whisper into Debian.
<p
>
198 <p
>I am still involved in the LinuxCNC project, and organised a
199 developer gathering in Norway last summer. A new one is planned the
200 summer of
2025. I
've also helped evaluate patches and uploaded new
201 versions of LinuxCNC into Debian.
</p
>
203 <p
>After a
10 years long break, we managed to get a new and improved
204 upstream version of
<tt
>lsdvd
</tt
> released just before Christmas. As
205 I use it regularly to maintain my DVD archive, I was very happy to
206 finally get out a version supporting DVDDiscID useful for uniquely
207 identifying DVDs. I am dreaming of a Internet service mapping DVD IDs
208 to IMDB movie IDs, to make life as a DVD collector easier.
</p
>
210 <p
>My involvement in Norwegian archive standardisation and the free
211 software implementation of the vendor neutral Noark
5 API continued
212 for the entire year. I
've been pushing patches into both the API and
213 the test code for the API, participated in several editorial meetings
214 regarding the Noark
5 Tjenestegrensesnitt specification, submitted
215 several proposals for improvements for the same. We also organised a
216 small seminar for Noark
5 interested people, and is organising a new
217 seminar in a month.
</p
>
219 <p
>Part of the year was spent working on and coordinating a Norwegian
220 Bokmål translation of the marvellous children
's book
221 «
<a href=
"https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/
">Ada and
222 Zangemann
<a
>», which focus on the right to repair and control your own
223 property, and the value of controlling the software on the devices you
224 own. The translation is mostly complete, and is now waiting for a
225 transformation of the project and manuscript to use Docbook XML
226 instead of a home made semi-text based format. Great progress is
227 being made and the new book build process is almost complete.
</p
>
229 <p
>I have also been looking at how to companies in Norway can use free
230 software to report their accounting summaries to the Norwegian
231 government. Several new regulations make it very hard for companies
232 to do use free software for accounting, and I would like to change
233 this. Found a few drafts for opening up the reporting process, and
234 have read up on some of the specifications, but nothing much is
235 working yet.
</p
>
237 <p
>These were just the top of the iceberg, but I guess this blog post
238 is long enough now. If you would like to help with any of these
239 projects, please get in touch, either directly on the project mailing
240 lists and forums, or with me via email, IRC or Signal. :)
</p
>
242 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
243 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
244 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
249 <title>New oggz release
1.1.2 after
15 years
</title>
250 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_oggz_release_1_1_2_after_15_years.html
</link>
251 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_oggz_release_1_1_2_after_15_years.html
</guid>
252 <pubDate>Sun,
9 Feb
2025 01:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
253 <description><p
>A little over a week ago, I noticed
254 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/liboggz
">the liboggz
255 package
</a
> on my Debian dashboard had not had a new upstream release
256 for a while. A closer look showed that its last release, version
257 1.1.1, happened in
2010. A few patches had accumulated in the Debian
258 package, and I even noticed that I had passed on these patches to
259 upstream five years ago. A handful crash bugs had been reported
260 against the Debian package, and looking at the upstream repository I
261 even found a few crash bugs reported there too. To add insult to
262 injury, I discovered that upstream had accumulated several fixes in the
263 years between
2010 and now, and many of them had not made their way
264 into the Debian package. I decided enough was enough, and that a new
265 upstream release was needed fixing these nasty crash bugs. Luckily I
266 am also a member of the Xiph team, aka upstream, and could actually go
267 to work immediately to fix it.
</p
>
269 <p
>I started by adding automatic build testing on
270 <a href=
"https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggz
">the Xiph gitlab oggz
271 instance
</a
>, to get a better idea of the state of affairs with the
272 code base. This exposed a few build problems, which I had to fix. In
273 parallel to this, I sent an email announcing my wish for a new release
274 to every person who had committed to the upstream code base since
275 2010, and asked for help doing a new release both on email and on the
276 #xiph IRC channel. Sadly only a fraction of their email providers
277 accepted my email. But Ralph Giles in the Xiph team came to the
278 rescue and provided invaluable help to guide be through the release
279 Xiph process. While this was going on, I spent a few days tracking
280 down the crash bugs with good help from
281 <a href=
"https://www.valgrind.org/
">valgrind
</a
>, and came up with
282 patch proposals to get rid of at least these specific crash bugs. The
283 open issues also had to be checked. Several of them proved to be
284 fixed already, but a few I had to creat patches for. I also checked
285 out the Debian, Arch, Fedora, Suse and Gentoo packages to see if there
286 were patches applied in these Linux distributions that should be
287 passed upstream. The end result was ready yesterday. A new liboggz
288 release, version
1.1.2, was tagged, wrapped up and published on the
289 project page. And today, the new release was uploaded into
292 <p
>You are probably by now curious on what actually changed in the
293 library. I guess the most interesting new feature was support for
294 Opus and VP8. Almost all other changes were stability or
295 documentation fixes. The rest were related to the gitlab continuous
296 integration testing. All in all, this was really a minor update,
297 hence the version bump only from
1.1.1 to to
1.1.2, but it was long
298 overdue and I am very happy that it is out the door.
</p
>
300 <p
>One change proposed upstream was not included this time, as it
301 extended the API and changed some of the existing library methods, and
302 thus require a major SONAME bump and possibly code changes in every
303 program using the library. As I am not that familiar with the code
304 base, I am unsure if I am the right person to evaluate the change.
305 Perhaps later.
</p
>
307 <p
>Since the release was tagged, a few minor fixes has been committed
308 upstream already: automatic testing the cross building to Windows, and
309 documentation updates linking to the correct project page. If a
310 important issue is discovered with this release, I guess a new release
311 might happen soon including the minor fixes. If not, perhaps they can
312 wait fifteen years. :)
</p
>
314 <p
>I would like to send a big thank you to everyone that helped make
315 this release happen, from the people adding fixes upstream over the
316 course of fifteen years, to the ones reporting crash bugs, other bugs
317 and those maintaining the package in various Linux distributions.
318 Thank you very much for your time and interest.
</p
>
320 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
321 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
322 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
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